Foreigners leaving Japan

Today's radiation scare is likely the last draw for countless numbers of expats. Washington Post reports that they've been buying last-minute plane tickets out of Japan. The airports are reported to be very busy, and the planes are packed.

The lack of information -- or the unreliability of it -- has frustrated not only local citizens, but also foreigners who call Japan home. But fleeing the country has proven to be no simple task. Flights were selling out quickly. With no trains and little gasoline, transportation to Tokyo from the north has been close to impossible. Sophie Loemce, a 24-year-old doctoral student in the quake-ravaged city of Sendai, said could tolerate the destruction of the physics laboratory where she did her research, the tsunami that erased the nearby coastline and two days of living in a cafeteria at Tohuku University because of concerns that her residence was unsafe. But the ambiguous threat of a nuclear catastrophe sent her scrambling to get back to France--especially after the French government urged all its citizens to come home and said it would pay their airfare.